School: Ráth Dubh, An Bhlárna (roll number 8393)
- Location:
- Rathduff, Co. Cork
- Teacher: D. Ó Súilleabháin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0389, Page 048
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Ráth Dubh, An Bhlárna
- XML Page 048
- XML “The Famine Times”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- The old people have a good many stories about the Great Famine in 1846 and 1847. A fever came and about two thirds of the people died.
The district was very thickly populated before that time. The people can point out hundreds of houses which were then occupied and are now in ruins.
Two years before the famine the potatoes grew very plentiful and the people abused them. That year the potatoes withered in the ground.
The government supplied the seed potatoes for the coming year. The potatoes were sown in ridges three feet wide.
The people had oaten bread and yellow meal instead of potatoes. Some had nothing but they would beg, others died of fever and hunger.
The Government Relief Schemes reached the district the second year of the famine and did public work such as making roads etc.(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Maureen O' Brien
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Knockantota South, Co. Cork
- Informant
- Mrs Kearney
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Knockantota South, Co. Cork
